Alice Jolly
Earning His Spurs
My Name is Yip
By Paddy Crewe
Doubleday 384pp £14.99
The narrative voice in Paddy Crewe’s bold and impressive debut belongs to Yip, who is mute, tiny and has no hair anywhere on his body. Yip was born in 1815 and lives in Heron’s Creek, a small town in Georgia. His father mysteriously disappeared on the night of his birth so he lives with his mother, who runs a general store. She is a woman of ‘ruthless Assiduity’ who finds Yip a burden.
Yip is not able to go to school because the other children find his strange appearance unnerving (‘them recoil as though one touch of me might bring the Devil dancing to their door’). Consequently, he has nothing to do except sit outside his mother’s store and watch the
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It wasn’t until 1825 that Pepys’s diary became available for the first time. How it was eventually decrypted and published is a story of subterfuge and duplicity.
Kate Loveman tells the tale.
Kate Loveman - Publishing Pepys
Kate Loveman: Publishing Pepys
literaryreview.co.uk
Arthur Christopher Benson was a pillar of the Edwardian establishment. He was supremely well connected. As his newly published diaries reveal, he was also riotously indiscreet.
Piers Brendon compares Benson’s journals to others from the 20th century.
Piers Brendon - Land of Dopes & Tories
Piers Brendon: Land of Dopes & Tories - The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson by Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd)
literaryreview.co.uk
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk